The Sunday night message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on September 3, 2023. The Bible verses used are Mark 13:1-36.
We’ve talked before about how
we see a lot of things going on right now that we don’t think are the way they
should be. Seeing all this stuff has caused some people to wonder:
are we living in the end times?
Well, I don’t know. I’m not saying that to evade the
question, nor am I asking it to imply an answer. I simply do not
know. Jesus said, “About that day or hour no one knows, not even the
angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” But I will tell you
this: if we are in the end times, we’re just in the beginning of
them. Because Jesus says things are going to be a whole lot worse than
what we’ve experienced so far.
Jesus is describing what’s going to happen to his
disciples. He does not paint a pretty picture. Listen again to some
of what he says. “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines.”
“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children
will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.” And Jesus
says, this is just the beginning. It’s going to get even worse after that.
“The sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light. The stars
will fall from the sky and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”
And Jesus’ followers are not going to be exempt from all
this. In fact, the way it sounds, Jesus’ followers are going to get the
worst of it. Jesus says, “You must be on your guard. You will be
handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues.” He says
they will be arrested and brought to trial. And then Jesus says,
“Everyone will hate you because of me.”
I wonder what the disciples thought, when they heard Jesus
say all this. We’re they scared? Were they anxious? Did they
wonder if they could really withstand all this? Or were they confident,
believing that they could and would stand up for Jesus? Were they ready
to be beaten and even die on behalf of Jesus if that was what God required of
them?
And how do we feel, hearing all this? Because if the
end times are beginning, then it seems likely that, at some point, what Jesus
said about his followers will apply to us, too. There are places in the
world where Christians are jailed, or even killed, because of their
faith. We like to think that could never happen here, and to be honest I
cannot envision it happening here. But, when the end times do come,
whenever that is, even Christians in small towns in South Dakota are not going
to be exempt from the consequences of it.
What would we do, in that situation? Would we be able
to stand up for Jesus? Would you or I be ready to be beaten, or even die,
on behalf of Jesus?
I don’t know whether we can really answer that question
unless we’ve been in that situation. After all, it’s easy to say we
would, when we don’t really expect to be put to the test. It’s only when
we are put to the test that we can know for sure.
But that does not mean we should just drop the subject and
move on. In fact, we should do just the opposite. Because, after
telling the disciples that only God the Father knows when the end times will
come, Jesus said this: “Be on guard! Be alert!” In fact,
Jesus says, it’s precisely because we don’t know when the end times will come
that we need to be ready all the time. If we knew, maybe we could afford
to wait until just before it happened to get ourselves ready. But we
don’t. So we need to be ready now. Because we don’t have any
guarantee that the end times will not come now.
How do we do that? I think the way we do it is to get
and stay as close to God as we can. I think the way we do it is to take
our faith very seriously.
Now, in saying that, I’m not saying that you don’t take
your faith seriously. I’m sure many of us do. It’s not for me to
judge how seriously you take your faith. But I think a lot of us,
definitely including me, could take our faith more seriously than we do.
I think it starts with prayer. Now, I don’t doubt
that most people here, maybe everyone here, prays. And that’s good.
But I suspect some of us could go deeper in our prayer life than we
should.
How often are we truly honest with God? How often do
we tell God everything about what we’re going through? How often do we
tell God our hopes, our dreams, our fears, our worries, our concerns? How
often do we thank God for all God’s blessings, share with God our joys, tell
God all the things that are on our minds and in our hearts?
And then, after we’ve said that, how often do we open our
minds and hearts so we can hear God’s response? After we’ve prayed, do we
really turn the things we prayed about over to God?
Maybe you do. Again, I’m not judging you.
That’s not my point. But for those of who don’t, or who maybe sometimes
do and sometimes don’t, it’s something we need to work on. Really praying
deep, honest prayers is one of the best ways we can really start to feel close
to God and feel God’s Holy Spirit in our hearts and in our minds. It’s
one of the best ways we can get ourselves ready, as Jesus told us to.
Another way to get ready and take our faith seriously is to
read the Bible. Now, I’m not suggesting you have to read the whole Bible
cover to cover. I mean, if you want to, that’s fine. My guess is
that some of you probably have. There’s certainly nothing wrong with
doing it. But I don’t know that it’s the best way to get started if we
really want to take our faith seriously.
I think the best way to start
would be to read the words of Jesus. The four gospels, Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John, give us the words of Jesus Christ. They tell us how Jesus
wants us to live. They tell us what our attitude should be toward
God. They tell us what our attitude should be toward others.
Again, I know many of you do
read the Bible regularly. But I cannot think of a better way to get
closer to God than to read the words of Jesus and take them seriously. I
cannot think of a better way for us to get ourselves ready for whatever may
come than to live our lives the way Jesus told us to live them. Loving
God. Loving our neighbors. Treating others as we’d like them to
treat us. Sharing the gospel. Going and making disciples. If
we do those things, we will find ourselves closer to God than we’ve ever been.
Another way to get ready and to take our faith seriously is
to spend time with other people of faith. Our faith will not grow in a
vacuum. We need other people to support us. And we need to support
them. We all need the encouragement of others, and others need our
encouragement. After all, even Jesus did not try to live his life
alone. Neither did the disciples. They had each other, and they
needed each other. We all need each other.
One of the ways to do that, of course, is to be here in
church. But there are other ways. You can be in a Bible
study. You can be in a small group. You can even do this
online. But somehow, in some way, we need to others to support us in our
faith. That support is needed to keep our faith strong, and it’s only by
keeping our faith strong that we’ll be ready the way Jesus told us to be.
Now, if we’re serious about this, it’s going to take a
commitment. And one of the ways we make that commitment is with
time. It’s not like we can do this stuff once, for a few minutes, and
there we have it. It takes time. I’m not suggesting that you spend
every waking moment doing these things. That’s not practical. But
they do take time. And if you’re like me, you’re not going to just
magically have the time. You’re going to have to find the time. My
suggestion is that you put it into your daily schedule somehow. But if
that does not work for you, then I encourage you to find a way that does
work. Because it does take a time commitment to do all these things.
It may seem like it’s not easy. But there are
benefits. For one thing, we’ll have God’s Holy Spirit with us.
Jesus told the disciples, and he tells us, that if we stay close to God, then
when our faith gets us into trouble, we don’t need worry about how to handle
it. He says, “Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not
you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.”
And the other benefit is that we will be among the
saved. Jesus says that, when he comes in his glory, the angels will
gather his people “from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends
of the heavens.” No matter what may happen, through our faith in Jesus,
we will be okay. We will be among God’s people, gathered for the Lord.
Again, I have no idea whether we’re in the beginning of the
end times. But it’s precisely because we don’t know that we need to be
ready. If we are, if we stay close to God and keep our faith strong, we
have nothing to worry about. We can withstand whatever may happen.
God’s Holy Spirit will be with us. And we will be saved.
No comments:
Post a Comment